Today's Politicians Aren't So Bad—Really

By

Joe Queenan

Oct. 25, 2013 9:50 p.m. ET

While traveling in Europe the past three weeks, I constantly heard the same litany of complaints about politicians. In England I heard that the Tory party had been bought and paid for by big business. I heard exactly the same thing about Angela Merkel's party when I arrived in Berlin. If a party had won the last election, it was because the fix was in and everyone was on the payroll. Every schoolchild knew that.

But it wasn't as if one party had a monopoly on stupidity, cowardice and greed; in France, England and Germany...